In today’s podcast, Sam and I were discussing the Lord’s seven “I am” statements in John’s Gospel. I said they were all evangelistic. But when I got to “I am the light of the world,” I stumbled. Why? Because Jesus went on to say, “He who follows Me, shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
Following Jesus is a discipleship principle. Walking in the light is the key to discipleship.
On the air, I said that it is good for an unbeliever to know that if he comes to faith, a life of meaning and purpose will be available to him. Not only will he have everlasting life, but if he then follows Jesus, he will have fullness of life. That is how I explained having “the light of life.”
But after the show, I began to wonder. The other six “I am” statements are all directly evangelistic on their face. What about John 8:12?
In The Grace New Testament Commentary, I wrote concerning John 8:12:
This verse concerns discipleship (“He who follows Me”), not receiving eternal life (conditioned on believing in Jesus). Those who follow Christ (i.e., His disciples) “shall not walk in darkness” in their experience. Rather they will “have the light of life,” meaning they will walk in the light that Jesus gives His followers (cf. 1 John 1:5–10) (p. 406).
I probably should not have said that John 8:12 concerns discipleship. Better would have been to say John 8:12 concerns the fullness of life available to those who believe in Jesus.
By contrast, most commentators explain John 8:12 as teaching that we must believe and obey Christ in order to have everlasting life. Here are two sample comments:
When Jesus said, Whoever follows Me, He meant whoever believes and obeys Him (cf. 10:4–5, 27; 12:26; 21:19–20, 22). Jesus was speaking of salvation (Blum, “John” in BKC, p. 303).
To follow Jesus is to believe and trust him. How can anyone trust the darkness? He must mistrust and flee from it when the light shines over him. How can anyone mistrust and flee from the light when it shines over him? We are made for this light and its life, our whole being responds to it. How can it help but draw, hold, and fill us? While to follow means to believe and to trust, it means this in its fulness, even as the verb “to have” indicates. To follow is to believe and to obey, i.e., to walk in the path of this life. To follow means to unite inwardly with Jesus…(Lenski, John, p. 597).
I think I was right about what I said on the radio. In all four Gospels, following Jesus almost always refers to discipleshipi. When Jesus spoke of walking in the light, the issue was clearly conduct, not belief.
Unbelievers should be attracted to Jesus not only because He guarantees everlasting life to the believer, but also because the life He gives is capable of having great meaning and significance.
Keep grace in focus and you won’t change the condition of everlasting life from believing in Jesus to obeying and following Him.
i A possible exception would be following Jesus in John 10:4, 27. When Jesus said, “the sheep follow him” and “My sheep…follow Me,” He was not giving a command to follow Him. He was saying that this is what His sheep do. While this might refer to believing in Him (a sheep following a shepherd is like someone’s believing a promise), the Lord’s point might be that His sheep follow Him to heaven and then later into the kingdom. His sheep go where He goes.
